


The Millennium Deal - Five: Epicenter

by Cara_Loup



Series: The Millennium Deal [6]
Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Adventure, Friendship/Love, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mystery, Romance, Telepathic Bond, The Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-15
Updated: 2015-12-15
Packaged: 2018-05-06 20:07:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5429087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cara_Loup/pseuds/Cara_Loup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A closed door on the far side shuttered the dim stretch. Filthy yellowed light slatted in through an air filter above. Old smells lingered in the passage, breathed out of the wallpaper, and the floor was littered with pale chunks of plaster and mortar from the ceiling. Nothing suspect or threatening, but all his instincts recoiled.<br/><i>Don’t go through that door</i>.<br/>What a perfect moment to entertain a freaking déjà-vu. Han expelled his breath in a snort and crept forward, but the corridor tunneled out in front of him, and there were no other doors on either side, just the claustrophobic sense of no choice at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Millennium Deal - Five: Epicenter

** Five: Epicenter  **

Luke had slept less than an hour when Han’s grip yanked him back to waking, the low, battered sound of his voice striking up instant alarm.

_Nightmare_ , Luke thought, too familiar with the sound of his own stammering replies to threats hauled from the bottom of his mind. Han’s chest was slick with sweat, the hand clamped around Luke’s forearm cold as if the force of his grip had staunched circulation.

“Don’t open that door...” Every word emerged with a grating effort.

“Han, c’mon.” Luke smoothed sweaty tangles back from his forehead. “Wake up.”

No indication that he’d heard. Han rolled over, both hands burrowing into the bedroll. “Chewie, turn her round... I said turn her—”

A sequence of slurred vowels that pieced themselves together in Luke’s mind, words spilling from memories he couldn’t guess at. Han kicked at the blanket and muttered “she’s gone" — _the Falcon? Leia?_ Luke wondered while his hands captured the tense shoulders, stroked soothingly down Han’s spine. But he realized it was neither when Han sat bolt upright, rasping, “I should’ve come home sooner.”

His skin overrun with heat and a dry fever pulse bursting through his veins. Recognition stabbed at Luke with a jolt of adrenaline. They’d been careless fools, caught up in their own troubles and the riots tearing through the Corellian north, thinking they were invincible, immortal, as soon as they’d escaped Gol’s trap.

He’d already climbed into his pants when Han pitched sideways and heaved up the contents of his stomach, his eyes screwed shut. Catching hold of his shoulders again, Luke murmured to him, an incantation that went unheard and perhaps served only the purpose of blocking the truth from mind. _Not a cold_...

He poured his awareness into the Force and channeled it back into his touch until the dry heaves subsided. When Han sagged with exhaustion, Luke made himself let go. “I’ll get some water.”

As if he had to keep pretending to himself, within the stifled space of the tent, and could breathe in fear only after he’d stepped outside.

He crossed the camp at a run. With the help of a lone guard, he roused Peg from her shelter, explaining in fits and starts. “We didn’t expect — we thought Corellians would be immune...”

She frowned and pushed her fingers through sleep-ruffled hair. “Let me get Brent. He’s had medical training.”

“We need to take Han to a med center,” Luke insisted, “right away.”

“Sure, but maybe Brent can do something for him in the meantime.”

Luke fell back a step as she passed him, alerted minutes too late to the likelihood that he’d contracted the same disease — if not aboard the Falcon, then sometime during the night. He stopped Chewbacca with a snapped warning when the Wookiee charged from his tent, growling menace at running shadows.

In under a minute, Peg returned. The bearded young man in her company pinched rubber gloves from his medikit and strapped on a mouthpiece that muffled his voice as they entered the tent.

“Let me see...” He dropped to his knees beside Han. “Looks like a violent defense reaction from his metabolism.”

Seeking fingers counted pulsebeats while an ancient mediscanner flashed apocryphal confirmation. Brent flipped it aside to root through his medikit. “I’ll just shoot him up with something that’ll stimulate his body’s natural defenses. Can’t risk anything else before we know what this is.”

Han lay curled up on his side, both arms clenched down hard over his stomach. By the time a skittish engine throbbed outside the tent, he was fighting his way back to consciousness. Wrapped in a blanket, he staggered to his feet, falling heavily into Luke’s support, each step a buckling effort.

Peg had selected a rangecar with a separate passenger cabin. “I’ll drive,” she said tersely. “You watch over him. Brent will follow with your Wookiee friend.”

The tethered moon was rising on its designated course, yellow and weary, and streamed long shadows behind every tree. As they shot across a sprawling plateau, dust flushed up against the rangecar’s window, the splatter of grit muttering protest in a hostile dialect. On the passenger bench, Luke held Han cushioned against him, enclosed in a circuit that simmered with living Force. Bracing the panic that spun through his bloodstream and burned off the distance, mile by mile, while they raced into the south-east.

 

There were few droids in the med center, and the human personnel approached them in cumberous body suits, professional smiles rendered vague behind glittering face plates. They surrounded Han in tubes, hookups and diagnostic equipment, lighting the sickroom with the flares of his vital signs, but his skin still crawled with consuming heat. One of the doctors explained that they’d refrain from interfering unless the fever climbed any higher; let the body battle out this crisis at its own pace. Meanwhile they’d run tests to identify the virus.

“Don’t worry,” one of the nurses offered token reassurance, “we’ve got him stabilized now.”

She suggested the waiting lounge to Luke, but he refused, positioned between the bed and the monitor where Han’s brainwaves translated into fragile wisps that glistened and faltered like condensation.

“We need a blood sample from you too,” she said.

With remote, morbid interest, Luke watched his blood pulse up in spurts, filling the syringe. The image lingered, incongruous with the biting cold of a disinfectant sprayed against the hollow of his arm, and he realized he was giving way to the battering of exhaustion and worry. The nurse eyed him skeptically, perhaps gauging the risk of a breakdown, and ushered an armchair to the side of the bed without another word.

Luke flopped down gratefully and took Han’s fingers into his own. Han’s wrist was ringed by the cool silver of a diagnostic cuff, his face drawn inward as if in concentration, pale and defiant against the matted dark hair. Sometimes his mouth seemed to strain at words, his body so deeply entrenched in a molecular battle that no sound formed.

Luke could feel their pulse patterns attune as he drew on the Force again, until the fever threaded into his temples, a signature as clear and immediate as the ragged spikes on the monitor. He could think nothing, except that his healing attempts were crude and wasteful, a wash of undirected energy that found its target by sheer accident. He speculated that its accuracy might improve if filtered through his own flesh and nerve and let the Force run full course through his body, then drained it from himself.

Fear sat humped and bristling like a squall on the edge of his mind and moved in each time his concentration wavered. Time passed in random spasms, attested by overwrought blinks from the wall chrono. While Luke braced himself against sleep, he watched a pale wedge lengthen across the sheet that covered Han, the first implication of morning.

A short while later, the nurse returned to study the monitor and extract another ounce of blood from Han. When she’d left, a commotion struck through the corridor. Chewbacca appeared on the other side of the observation window, a liquid frost gleaming in his fur as if he’d turned a panicked white within hours. For several seconds, Luke stared at him until he identified the dried sterilizing foam.

Through the insulating pane, only the lowest frequencies of Chewbacca’s voice eddied in, vigorous like subsonic rumbles, but Luke understood without resorting to the wall com. The Wookiee constitution differed so vastly from that of humans, Chewbacca was saying, that a virus equally dangerous to both species was a thing of fantasy.

“We can’t take any chances,” Luke answered, sure that Chewie would read his lips.

At that moment, the pressure in his temples slackened by a fraction, and he pivoted back to the bed, aware of the fever dropping along a gentle slope that steadied Han’s breathing. Relief broke through the horizon imposed by dread, and Luke warned himself against giving in to it. His fingertips felt icy against the vibrancy at Han’s wrist.

“Luke...” A whisper now, just below actual sound. Han swallowed convulsively.

He tightened his shaky grip. “Right here. You’ll be okay.”

Han pried his eyes open and fixed him with a look as if he were the real cause for concern. “I should’ve stayed... on Coruscant.”

Then he sank back exhausted, and a detail of medics and doctors swept into the room to converse over their instruments.

“...producing antibodies at an amazing rate,” one of them said.

Dizzy with relief, Luke felt a rapid swell that filled his ears with static and collapsed his last defenses against sleep.

* * *

His cramped joints accounted for missing time. Unalarmed, Luke stretched in the chair. A steady echo of pulsebeats whispered directly behind his own, a familiar pattern that had paced his sleep.

When he opened his eyes, the monitors stitched their liquid rhythms into twilight, and Han was watching him. Motionless, every retrieved bit of energy concentrated into that unclouded, single-minded look. From the observation window, a bright rectangle had settled across his shoulder and grazed the hair that stuck up in a ruffle behind his ear.

“Hey, kid.”

Luke sat up slowly, a smile starting like a tremor.

“What a ride...” Han’s breath went out with a rush of bewilderment. “Care to fill me in? The last thing I remember is you ‘n me.”

This time, when Luke reached across, Han’s fingers laced firmly through his own, and the connection lingered, unlocking vast reserves of gratitude. And a desperate fervor that wrapped around him, more immediate than actual touch.

“You had a violent fever spell,” Luke answered. “The doctors say that the virus attacks the digestive tract first, but whatever it’s bound to do next, it seems that your body stopped it.”

“Sure feels like I’ve been pulled through the wringer... couple of times over.” The next breath hitched in Han’s chest and his eyes narrowed. “How ‘bout you?”

“I’m okay. And so is Chewie.” From where he sat, Luke could see the tall shadow slant across the corridor wall, still guarding the room.

The green flickers of a monitor ran through Han’s eyes, relief shading into doubt and back again, all of it falling into dimness when he raised his head. His grip tensed, so much that Luke could feel the trembling in it, the strength of feeling traced clearly against his senses.

So much — and not enough, if Han couldn’t let himself trust it.

“Damnit, I could’ve — should’ve—” Han broke off at that, left the thought suspended as he sagged back against the cushions. “Gods, all the crazy dreams I had...”

“You said something about Coruscant.”

“I did, huh?” Han glanced at him again, not at all surprised. “Keep comin’ back to that.” He paused, as if skipping that line of thought in favor of another. “Never asked what it was like for you.”

“Almost like Yavin Four,” Luke said, startled into voicing a similarity he’d never considered before. “Hopeless. For a while, I didn’t think there was much of a chance we’d survive, and maybe that’s what kept us going.” The taste of dust and soot back in his mouth, ash clouds bloating past the manic swirl of torch beams — until something had jarred him from operating on autopilot, into a moment of genuine hope.

“And then you were there.” He smiled self-consciously. “Like a call back to life. I had to remind myself that you’d come for Leia.”

Han pushed to a half-sitting position and shook his head. “That’s just the thing...” His fingers clenched slowly into the sheet as if digging for a hold. “Took a blow like that to bring it home.”

“Bring what home?” Luke asked.

“I was tryin’ to find you ‘n Leia, thinking what if—” The muscles in Han’s throat slanted, caging the words for another moment. “What if only _one_ of you survived — if I could rescue just one of you — ‘n what if everything was hanging on my choice. Crazy.”

Apprehensions curled in Luke’s stomach and unraveled slowly into understanding. The atrocity of that thought, an awful cut driving Han away so he’d never have to face that kind of choice again. And face himself with it.

“I had nightmares about it on Ylab,” Han went on, a dry chuckle getting him started again. “Not before. Should’ve known by then it wouldn’t be so easy to let go.”

Luke glanced down at his hands. He could feel Han’s eyes on him and something dazzling, like a boundary about to lift.

“Felt like I had to make a choice that day,” Han said, “and...” His hands balled tight. “...it was you.”

Without warning, the pressure in his chest blocked speech. Luke took another moment to gather his breath. “But then... Han, I don’t get it! Why—?”

“Ain’t that enough? Always thought I knew what I wanted...” Han tossed his head back, all the frustration directed against himself. “How’m I to trust my own choices?”

Distant footsteps pattered in the corridor, rubber soles that hurried towards duty and marked out their residual time. Luke flung himself from the chair to clasp Han’s shoulders — the welcome coolness of skin no longer feverish — and when Han reached back for him, all those memories careened into the present. The defeat on Coruscant like a scar that joined them.

The green glitter was back in Han’s eyes when he hauled Luke into an awkward, shaky embrace, a brief thunder of heartbeat coinciding with Chewbacca’s growl on the other side of the door.

Next, a single doctor entered, followed by a different nurse with a datapad clamped tightly under one arm. Both wore protective gowns and masks that guarded only the lower half of their faces, a cautious easing of quarantine precautions.

“Your body temperature is almost back to normal,” the doctor said, with a perfunctory glance across the monitors. “I take it that you’re feeling better.”

“Much better.” Han summoned a look of grouchy alertness. “Still a bit fuzzy on some details though.”

For another second, Luke snatched at secrets that’d slipped Han’s control under the fever’s sway. _She’s gone_. And, _I should’ve come home sooner_. A deadlock of privacy broken only by accident. Begging questions he couldn’t ask. And it shouldn’t matter either, not now.

“We’ve isolated the virus,” the doctor continued, “and it seems to be a mutated variant of one classified a long time ago, although it’s too early to say anything definite. We’ve sent samples to several facilities in the capital. Their labs are better equipped to develop an antidote.”

“How dangerous is it?” Han lowered himself against the cushions, in the careful way that masked lingering exhaustion.

“That’s difficult to tell.” A glint from industrious instruments fell across the doctor’s name tag and spelled out MALIN, D. “Your immune response kicked in very fast, but at this point, we can only speculate why the right antibodies were produced within so short a time.”

“Meaning it might be something Corellian?” Han asked, darting a pointed glance at Luke.

“Either that, or it’s a matter of your individual constitution. You have traveled a lot, haven’t you?”

“You could say that.” Han shrugged one shoulder. “How about the dangers to other species then? What about everyone who wasn’t born and raised on Corellia?”

Malin shook his head in reluctant apology. “It’s too early to predict the effects. Incubation periods could vary between species too, depending on their immune system.”

“It’s evident that Wookiees are immune, however,” the nurse said from the door, thin crinkles around her eyes suggesting a smile. “Your friend has been waiting for a chance to look in on you.”

Distracted only for a moment, Malin leveled his attention at Luke. “We’d assumed that you’d already been infected,” he said in all neutrality, “but our tests results show no conclusive evidence. Do you experience any symptoms yourself?”

“Nothing at all.” Once again, Han’s covert scrutiny touched him like a fine laser.

“All the same, we’d like you to submit to a few more tests,” the doctor said. “If you prove to be immune as well, our findings could contribute to the development of an antidote.”

“And after that,” Han pitched in, quick to spot the opening, “I suppose we’re free to leave?”

Malin took awhile to frame a response that came in the company of a frown. “According to quarantine regulations, you should be confined for another week.”

“It’s _that_ contagious?” Luke asked instantly.

“Merely a precaution. The virus is transmitted only by direct exposure or through physical contact.” The doctor turned back to the bed. “Try to rest yourself as much as you can,” he instructed, stressing each word. “And remember that others may be infected if you grow careless. Report to me if any of the symptoms recur. Immediately.”

“Count on it,” Han answered, straight-faced, in his best military tone.

Malin gave a cheerless nod. “Barring unforeseen complications, you’ll be released tomorrow morning.”

* * *

Peg leaned against the parked rangecar when they stepped out into the misty, spurious light of early morning. Behind her, an outline of low-slung buildings swam in green and gray.

“Don’t tell me you’ve been waitin’ for us the whole time.” For everyone who didn’t know him well, Han carried himself just as usual, only the careful pace betraying effort.

“Oh, I’ve been out and about,” she assured him with an extra touch of gruffness. “A lot. Just figured you’d want a ride back to your ship.”

“Yeah. Thanks.” Han’s reply went under in a series of impatient barks from Chewie.

“At your leisure, gents.” Peg swept the passenger door wide open.

The craft shot off at a speed that merged buildings and trees into gushing gray streaks. Shoved back into the seat by that spurt of acceleration, Luke closed his eyes. A faint dizziness bloomed in his temples, the present moment overlaid by their last ride in this vehicle and the chills that revived through the drag of fatigue. Between a dozen meticulous tests, he’d slept only in short, uneasy spells.

Next to him, Han breathed in a similar pattern, not as hale yet as he tried to pretend. They were sitting close — arms, shoulders, thighs touching — and Han kept strafing him with apprehensive sidelong glances until Luke said under his breath, “I’m fine.”

“Right.” He could feel Han shift gears to make himself relax. “Wonder if they’re gonna name it the Gol bug,” he said a moment later.

From his other side, Chewbacca grunted that _Solo bug_ was just as likely a choice, and Han rolled his eyes.

“Just what I always wanted. Some dirty little microbe named after me.” But a different notion had already taken over when he turned back to Luke. “You did something with the Force, right?”

_You could feel that?_ Struck again by a sense of belonging that shone like a perfect memory, Luke had to remind himself that Han might have voiced a mere guess. “Yes, but... I don’t think that’s what cured you. I know very little about the way Force-enhanced healing works.”

“Maybe it accelerated the process.” Han had leaned closer, an impulse in his expression that shot through Luke in fluid quicksilver — but they couldn’t, not here — and Han lifted an arm to drape it across his shoulders, a compromise.

_We’ve been so lucky_ , Luke thought, letting himself unwind, enmeshed in amazement, Han’s body warmth, and the rangecar’s languid drone.

When he opened his eyes again, their speed had slowed to a dawdle, and Han’s breath was going quietly against the side of his neck.

“Looks like we’re here,” he murmured.

By the southern lake shore, angular shapes loomed like watchtowers through the mist. The rangecar pulled to a stop next to a streamlined glider, and before the engine wound down completely, someone flung the door open.

“Hey!” Castor stuck his head in and grinned widely. “So you could make it after all.”

“Anybody say we wouldn’t?” Covering surprise, Han unfolded his legs and climbed out after Luke. “How ‘bout you, how’d you get here?”

“Long story, cap. Had to knock some heads together ‘til they took me to the ring leader.” Castor grinned and rocked back on his heels. “They were still arguing about _procedures_ when the call from the brigades came in.” With an airy gesture, he let it all slide. “Anyhow. ‘S good to see you up ‘n back in shape. Oh, and the Princess should be here shortly. And someone called Lando.”

A sting of worry stripped the last drowsiness from Luke’s mind, and Han threw him a glance that said, _What’s going on?_ Leia coming to meet them out here seemed like a strident signal of trouble.

“Well.” Castor dredged up another grin to keep the mood on an optimistic keel. “Come and take a look at this. It’s bound to make your day.”

“I sure hope so,” Peg said caustically. “We’ve worked hard enough at it.”

A pair of binary lifters had trawled the Falcon towards the southern shore, magnetic clamps set against her ridged back. From their shadow stepped a man in high, muck-spattered boots.

“My brother. Cal,” Peg introduced. “That’s his equipment. He’s here to haul your ship back to land.”

“Thanks,” Han said, sounding a little overwhelmed.

The man’s smile beamed frank hero worship at him, but it dimmed when he waved at the lifters. “I’d calculated they’d be enough for an YT-1300, but either your ship’s sucked up a ton of water, or she’s packing extra equipment that accounts for the difference.”

“It might. We’ve made a couple modifications over the years.”

“I’ve tried to boost the power, but we’re running at max already.” Cal worked the back of his neck with one freckled hand. “Right now, we’re just about keeping her steady. Might have to wait ‘til we can get additional gear from the capital.”

A small jolt hurried across Luke’s thoughts. _No. We need her. As soon as possible_.

“Try again,” he suggested and heard the sharp gain of intent in his own voice.

Cal frowned, patently rummaging for a polite circumvention, but Peg intervened.

“He’s a Jedi.” And she cocked an eyebrow at her brother who grumbled “oh, right,” and rubbed his moustache.

“If you can give me a steady power output, I’ll do the rest of the work,” Luke said, keeping up a casual tone despite the faint, familiar awkwardness that settled over him. It passed when he walked to the waterfront where the glitters of sunlight on fog cradled the Falcon.

“Luke,” Han said a step behind him. “You, uh, need any help with this?”

He could hear so much in Han’s tone — trust, grudging belief, the ruffled front line of rationality — that it made him smile. _More faith than I had back on Dagobah_.

“Just stay with me and...”

“Keep my fingers crossed?” Han offered with mock-flippancy.

A wet shuffling across the muddy slope announced Chewbacca joining them. Everything was quiet on the eastern shore, the settlement drifting asleep on the banked fog.

“Yes. Sounds about right.”

Luke breathed out and let himself go with it, sliding from his own center to stretch outward. On Dagobah, he’d raised a hand as if to command, a terrible strain tearing through his spine until he trembled with the weight that existed only in his mind. There was nothing of it now.

_I can do this_. The knowledge came like a burst, directed at Yoda through a slippage of dimensions, and he almost laughed out loud. Through his closed lids burned a core of sunlight, contracting gradually into the shape of the Falcon.

He framed her with the directional power that poured from the load lifters, slowly extending beyond, into the migrant patches of mist on the water and the sparkling energy woven through them. With every breath he took, those threads laced together into solid, brimming strings — and a surge went through him that opened his eyes.

Ribbons of water trailed around the Falcon’s bulk as she heaved above the surface, skeins of molten light that sluiced down in curtains.

The soaked earth fell away beneath his boots, flight rising up through him in tremors. He felt afloat with her, adrift in the currents he channeled. And he pictured her soaring, straight up into the stratosphere — when a different image ripped through the middle of his mind.

A golden-brown wingspan, glistening wet. Splayed pinions cleaving a brilliant sky, his mind’s horizon, with ferocious beauty. The sky burst like a bubble around the falcon’s cry that fell back in icy blue shards, the color of freedom.

A hand on his shoulder caught him as if he’d reeled — and maybe he had — slowly changing his mind’s direction into the grid of practical thinking and technicalities.

Yes. He had to activate the Falcon’s landing gear, or she’d crash ashore the moment he released his control. If the mechanism was jammed, or damaged by the water...

But the Force shivered with boundless energy, ready to spill over into dormant circuits, and he took it with him into a thousand memories of the Falcon’s cockpit. Operating switches until the green indicator flickered like a sleepy eye. A ponderous grind climbed into his bone-marrow, and he heard Han’s whoop from the far side of perception as the landing struts rumbled into place.

A sudden, vivid image kicked to the surface of his mind — Han and himself in the Falcon’s cockpit, against a gauze of stars — and there was something to it, like a subtle taste, that marked it as Han’s thought, not his, an image pushed at him without conscious intention. Like a beacon to guide him back.

A shuddering impact rolled through the mud, and Han’s arms had closed around him. He was shaking a little, not with strain but exuberance, within that private circle.

“C’mon, you sit down now,” Han said close by his ear, “give yourself a rest.”

A new growl of engines hovered on the air, and without turning, Luke located a phalanx of shuttles upslope, the white shapes of a tech crew in bloated, protective suits. Between them, they dragged hefty equipment, most likely pieces of a pump to drain water from the Falcon before she could be decontaminated.

_Just in time_ , Luke wanted to say, but a strange, airy distance expanded between the thought and his voice, and he spun within an altered sense of direction. _Focus_...

When he opened his eyes again, a string of footprints towed him along, up the slope, and he looked down at Han and himself, now seated on one of Cal’s packing crates. Suspended above, in a fragment of time, he watched, weightless and breathing. The play of sunlight like the pull of a dream on his skin. Han’s fingers curving gently around the back of his neck. Until his head lifted, and his own eyes looked up at him, a gravity well that plucked him out of detachment.

Luke fell into the sensation with a gasp, startled at the closeness of Han’s breath, the lopsided smile.

“You with me here?”

The sound that rose up his throat fell short of forming words, but he felt himself entire, balanced between the crate’s firm surface, Han’s arm around his shoulders, and the push of a western breeze.

“It’s okay,” Han said. “I mean, hell, you’ve just—” He ran out of words right there and laughed softly, the sound of it rich and warm in the moist air.

“Just... need to catch my breath, I think.”

“Take all the time you want.” Han straddled the crate, shifting them until Luke rested against his torso, and he sagged, into a pleasant drift below thought, surrounded by a tapestry of remote, wind-blown noises from the lake.

Perhaps it was an effect of pulling the Force so close that his mind didn’t deactivate while his body shut down completely. Without aim or intent, his awareness skimmed and amalgamated the past days and nights, casting random details into fleeting relief. Reflections from the bonfire leaping keen and supple across Han’s face and hands; cool night air curling into the tent, taking the heat off his skin in a shiver of spellbound rhythms. Electronic signals sprouting in the twilight, and the rasp of Han’s voice recalling Coruscant.

... _it was you_. Words circling up to grip him all over again, with a bright sting of knowledge — that Han had chosen him a long time ago and fought against it — and a small jolt went through his entire frame. With a quickened pulse, exterior sensations scaled up into definite shape.

A hand ruffling gently at his hair. Footsteps, a groan of hydraulics, lowered voices.

And then he heard Han say, “Nope, he just _wished_ her outta the water, if you know what I mean.”

“And you’re both okay, otherwise?”

The tense note of concern reached him before recognition. He blinked, into the flash of sunlight that stabbed past Leia’s frame.

“They gave us a clean bill at the med center,” Han answered and kept his arm around him. “Looks as if Luke didn’t catch it, but the doctor’s not sure what exactly it takes to be immune, so you’d better not get too close.”

“I’m surprised they released you so fast.”

A step behind Leia, Lando’s silhouette blurred in the fierce light that had eroded all the fogs. Luke sat up slowly and blinked again to clear his vision.

“Or maybe they just got tired of trying to keep you confined to bed,” Lando added, gruff and upset in equal measure. “Wouldn’t surprise me at all.”

On the shore, Chewbacca paced impatiently, barking at the techs who clustered all over the Falcon like giant, untimely snowflakes.

“Can we talk somewhere a little more private?” Leia asked, casting a quick glance around.

“Maybe one of the shuttles,” Lando suggested. “Should be roomy enough for a little conference.”

 

Peg and Castor joined them in the cargo hold where they pulled up packing crates and containers for makeshift seats. Through the open hatch slanted a thin streak of noonlight that dried their muddy footprints.

“I’m afraid,” Leia began, “that your warning reached us too late.” She glanced at an immaculate bulkhead as if to spare them a direct confrontation with bad news. “We’re still waiting to hear from the labs, but there have been cases of an unexplained, severe fever in the capital.”

Han interrupted her with a curse, his face pale in the white luminescence of the hold. “And you think it’s the same bug?”

“We don’t know that yet. Only Corellians have been affected so far... at least, as far as we can tell.” Anger etched itself into Leia’s tone. “The med center reports eight victims, all of them freight handlers, portside hands and their relatives. Perhaps there’s still a chance to keep the virus from spreading, now that the medical personnel has been alerted to its nature.”

“It’s bound to be more dangerous to immigrants,” Luke said. “Gol seems to have bred a mutation of the original Fallow Strain virus. The Corellian immune system is capable of developing antibodies, but for anyone else, it could be lethal.”

“What a bastard.” Lando folded his arms and rocked back on a steel container. “Maybe for the time being it would be a good idea to limit all contacts between—”

“Yeah, ‘n that’s exactly what Gol wants,” Han broke in.

“The new security routines are all in place now,” Leia said placatingly. “I don’t think Gol expected us to analyze and control the situation quite so fast. The labs are working on an antidote. With luck, we’ll have it by the time the Mon Cal delegation arrives. Until then, we must keep the information confidential to avoid a panic.”

Two days now, and four until the alignment. For a moment, Luke could see time ahead in a scrambled stretch, a funnel that drew a myriad minor events into it, aswirl around the turn of the millennium.

“There’s one thing you don’t know yet.” Lando grimaced as he traded a glance with Leia. “There was a bombing in the capital last night, or we would’ve been here sooner. Three casualties.”

“Nobody’s claimed responsibility for it yet,” Leia added, “but that hardly matters. The residents blame the Skylars.” She paused, and chagrin showed ahead of her next words. “Rieekan and Madine have proposed to reinforce the Corellian security patrols with our own military.”

Han snorted. “Madine’s Corellian. He should know better.”

“I bet that’s just what Gol calculated would happen.” Peg leaned forward and challenged Leia with a cool look. “Leave it to the brigades to handle this, Minister. Your military can stop the riots that way, but you’ll only generate sympathy and support for the Skylars. If the situation escalates any further, we’re heading for a civil war, I can tell you that much.”

“The brigades,” Leia echoed skeptically. “And you’re their representative?”

“Right here, I guess I am.”

“And what do you propose to do?”

“These are our own folk, and they trust us,” Peg said. “Once they learn about Gol, they’ll rethink their decisions, and we can infiltrate the Skylar groups much more easily than his agents could.”

Though he listened to their exchange, Luke’s focus shifted into a vague abstraction that filled with fragmented images, apprehensions of things to come. Bleached shapes and colors from the frescoes washing over into reality, a restless kaleidoscope — until Leia asked, “What about the gathering on the Yannis archipelago? What do you think Gol has in mind for the day of the alignment?”

“Some grand entrance, no doubt,” Lando grumbled, and Peg sent a speculative look out through the hatch. “We think the Mantura will serve as the legendary city in the sky.”

“Come to pick up the faithful,” Han muttered. Catching a glance from Leia, he scratched his chin and elaborated. "Gol’s stirred up mayhem all right, but he can’t be sure it’s gonna be enough to drive the Alliance off Corellia. I’m thinking that’s why he needs a ship that big. He can scoop up all the recruits he wants, then turn ‘em into his revolutionary army.” He paused to look sideways at Luke.

“And that’s where we’ll stop him,” Luke agreed.

“You sure about this?” Lando asked. “I mean, migration arks weren’t built for this type of thing. Can she even fly inside planetary atmosphere?”

“Takes beefing up the sublight drive and a couple other adjustments,” Han answered, “but, yeah, it can be done.”

“I don’t suppose you think that simply blowing her to bits is a good idea,” Lando said slowly.

Before Han could reply, Leia shook her head. “I’m afraid that’s hardly practicable. Without the Sullustian contingent, we don’t have the vehicles and firepower it would take to patrol Corellia’s inner space in its entirety. Fighter wings can’t hope to intercept a ship that size.”

“Yeah, and you can trust Gol to bring her out of lightspeed where we least expect him,” Han said. “Not much of a chance we’ll catch up before the Mantura’s taking the dive.”

“And if we attacked her inside Corellia’s atmosphere, we’d run a high risk of causing major damage and casualties,” Luke joined. “Destroying her is not an option.”

Lando rubbed at the ball of his thumb and returned a fretful look. “So what is?”

The answer to that came easy now. _Part of the Fall Cycle was turned into a play_ , Peg had told him, _a ritual_. All they had to do was revise the script for the play Gol was planning to stage.

“We’ve got the Falcon,” Luke said. “We can beat him at his own game.” The Fall Cycles unfolded before his inner sight, ripe with ambivalence that curled into the wrinkles of history. “All along, Gol has been preparing to recreate the prophecies, but it’s an open-ended story. If we work with the same material, we can change the outcome.”

A swift glint of amusement brightened Leia’s expression when she glanced from him to Han. “You’re planning to pose as messengers of the gods, is that what you’re saying?”

“What, you think I ain’t suited for the part?” Han’s grin dispelled the last tracks of weariness.

“More or less,” Luke qualified. Passing discomfort tugged at him, but he shunted it aside. “Remember the paintings you pointed out to me? The versions of the cycle that feature Jedi instead of the original characters? I won’t have to pretend that I’m anything I’m not.”

“If we can hold people’s attention long enough to make ‘em see that Gol’s not some mythical Reaper,” Han pointed out, “that should bust his plan for an easy sweep. ‘Course, we’ll need some kind of support group in the crowd...” He leaned back to address at Peg. “What d’you think?”

“Antram won’t like it much,” she answered, though a wry grin threatened on her mouth. “He believes in honesty and straightforward attack.”

“But you think it could work?”

She cocked her head. “Why not? I’ve always said those old myths were adaptable. It just takes some careful planning.”

“Well, I’m listening,” Leia said.

Another half hour had slipped by with a close scrutiny of timing, backup plans, and hazards when she finally climbed to her feet.

“I don’t like the number of incalculable factors and the risks you’ll be taking, but if we can’t stop Gol in orbit, it seems we have no other choice. I’ll inform Mon Mothma right away.” Her shoulders settled with familiar resolve. “Keep me posted at all times. Lando will help me deal with the diplomatic angle—”

“ _And_ I’ll keep an eye on Madine,” Lando inserted. “Not that I can pull rank on him, but he usually listens to me.”

“Sure hope so.” Han walked with them to the shuttle’s hatch.

The sun had dropped by a hand’s breadth. A yellow glare exploded into Luke’s vision as he followed, a sheaf of bright needles lancing to the back of his head. He fell back a step when Leia approached him, alerted again to the virus he might carry, and she read the gesture with alarm. “Did they give you a thorough check at the med center?”

“Of course they did.” Luke blinked against the trenchant spill. When Han turned back at the shuttle’s loading ramp, he sensed more than saw the concern that probed him.

“Yeah, we gotta give ‘em a call, see if they’ve come up with your test results.”

“I’ll do that in a minute,” Luke answered mechanically.

The contours of Leia’s face cleared by degrees and revealed a narrow smile. “Luke...” She hesitated for another moment, but all she added was, “Please be careful.”

 

Splinters of daylight rocked in militant brass on the lake’s skin, the Falcon a humped shadow against the brazen undulations. On the freighter’s back, Chewbacca plucked strands of cable from a subsurface conduit.

Luke lowered himself onto a patch of razor grass on the slope and kept his gaze averted from the water that set off a mad wavering behind his eyes. The decontamination crew had fanned out along the shore, a wire fence threading in their wake. Orange warning signs flapped at regular intervals. From the Falcon’s shadow coalesced a lean silhouette, and he straightened carefully when Han crossed over to him.

“They gotta restrict access to the lake,” Han reported. “What they’re gonna tell the residents is that something toxic leaked into the water after the crash.” He dropped down beside Luke and stretched his legs, a gesture that denied the hovering tension.

“So,” he started again in a braced, abrupt tone, “what’d the doctor say?” His mouth drew tight around the question.

“Negative,” Luke answered, though his throat had gone dry. “They found minimal traces of the virus in my earliest blood sample, but it appears to have been... atomized within hours.”

“Well, we sure could use some good news for a change!” A hand captured his shoulder, Han’s relief almost electric against his senses. “Peg wants us to come along to a meeting with the brigade chiefs tonight,” Han went on. “Guess that means I gotta leave Chewie ‘n Castor in charge of repairs.”

“You think they can have her ready in four days?”

“Sooner’n that. With a couple flight techs from the capital, they should wrap it up in three.” Inside a second, Han’s confidence faltered, reverted to a critical study of him. “You still look tired.”

“I haven’t slept much recently.”

“Then I’d better make sure to put you to bed early.” Han winked as he pushed to his feet. “Back in a few.”

Behind him, an afternoon wind fumed dust particles out of the dried mud. Luke glanced along the silvery web on the shore, the grainy texture of the light, and collected himself towards meditation.

… _atomized within hours_. How he wanted to believe that.

Giddy sensations steadied in the ebb and rise of the Force. With a quieting breath, Luke bent his attention inward, searching down a thin channel of vertigo. At its core drifted blind spots, torpid and alien pulsations within the magnified rhythms of his body.

Not atomized, assimilated.

A visceral chill stole through him, and he pushed the Force at those clotted zones, envisioned them shrinking, coming apart in a flood of bright resilience. They fluctuated, and remained compact.

He could replenish drained energies with the Force, strengthen his battered defenses. But without the genetic information that had protected Han, he couldn’t teach his own metabolism to produce antibodies. At best, he’d slow the process down.

Luke probed again, bewildered that he was left defenseless against something so scattered, without a will or purpose. But the Fallow Strain was at work inside him, and its victory only a matter of time.

* * * * *

They met in an old farmhouse this time, under an intact roof, a map spread across the wooden boards of an improvised table. All along the ragged blue coastline, bright markers flared the riot zones and townships where support for the Skylars rated the highest.

Han took another swig of spiced ale and relished the earthy aftertaste while he listened to the brainwork passed back and forth across the scruffy map. The brigade leaders were talking deployment of groups and individual commandos, and the whole thing went down pretty much like Alliance strategy meetings, except that titles and protocol never bogged down the pace of discussion. Seated at the end of the table, at a safe distance from the rest of the troupe, Luke and he threw out occasional comments and suggestions, though some of their Rebel tactics raised an eyebrow or two.

“Our efforts must concentrate on the area around Eiglom Port.” Antram tapped the location of a seaside town, a brown splodge on the map. “Reports say that serious fights have broken out in the southern district. It could get dangerous if the fighting spread to the offshore drill stations. We’ve got to bring the situation under control before the alignment.”

The woman next to Han leaned forward to angle a question at him. “Would you lead one of our groups in this operation? If you’re well enough...”

“Sure.” In afterthought, Han spared a moment to reassess his condition. “Guess I’d better stay out of the crossfire for another day, but yeah, I’ll handle it.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” She threw Antram a prompting look. “In fact, we’ve already discussed your future status.”

“Yes.” Antram drew himself upright, every inch the benevolent patriarch, about to hand out some dubious honor. “We’d like to assign you the rank of a brigade captain.”

His grandfatherly smile almost made Han twitch with the recollection of nostalgic lectures, a large hand clasping the back of his neck. “Wait a minute, I’m not a clan leader! Matter of fact, I ain’t got no family left.”

“Your ancestors served with the brigades,” Antram countered. “What’s more, you’ve served Corellia in your own, if somewhat unconventional way.”

In the sudden quiet, Han could hear the distant rumor of waves shattering against steep cliffs and felt absurdly flustered.

_Your grandad would be proud of you, son_. He could see that line scrawled all over Antram’s face, but at least the man spared him the blazing embarrassment. Next to him, Luke was doing a mediocre job at restraining a grin.

“All right,” Han said, “I, uh, accept. Thanks.”

No reason why a mere formality should get to him when he’d shouldered the general’s rank as a collateral necessity, but this was different. Like roots snarling out of the home soil, twenty footloose years too late. Like unpaid dues had finally caught up with him. At the same time, something clingy and irrational rose to his head with the sentimental buzz of too much ale and reminiscence.

At least his acceptance seemed to complete all the ceremony there was, no frills and fanfares, just agreeable murmurs from the assembly, before everyone’s attention returned to strategies and phantom battles.

“We should consider that civilian traffic’s bound to pick up like blazes,” someone said. “There’ll be a last-minute rush to Yannis, no doubt.”

And that was their cue to spring the freshly hatched plan for a counter-spectacle. Han snatched another conspiratorial glance from Luke and doubted very much that his new rank would turn this into an easy sell.

“About Yannis and the alignment...” he started.

Just like Peg had predicted, the notion of applying brash histrionics didn’t go over big with Antram and some of the brigade veterans. Frowns and muttered comments scuttled around the table while Han outlined the game plan.

“I still find it hard to believe that anyone would be so... gullible,” Antram said eventually. “The Skylars might entertain all kinds of delusions right now, but I can’t think their minds will be clouded enough to mistake an ancient bulk ship for the promised city of the just.”

“I don’t think so either,” Luke answered, “but after all this time of waiting and preparing for a crucial event, they’ll want _something_ to happen. They’ll seize on what’s offered to them.”

“What we’re plannin’ to do here is spoil Gol’s illusion,” Han put in. “Turn things around so they’ll have to question if what they see’s what they’ll actually get. You think just talkin’ to them will do the trick, convince ‘em they’ve been used for somebody else’s purpose?”

“I suppose not,” the veteran next to Antram answered for him. “Nobody likes to admit they’ve been running after scraps of fog and moonshine.”

Discussion carried on for some time, but Han recognized a turning point when it cropped up, and this was it. A short while later, the meeting broke up. Glad to abandon the hard bench, Han rubbed the small of his back. Thanks to the friggin’ Gol bug, his bones were getting stiff again with tiredness, even though an avalanche of data still reeled through his head.

The wind churned in wild blasts over the cliffs when they stepped outside. Han breathed the salty air in long drags while the chill battered at him. Beyond overgrown bluffs, the sea’s outer rim stretched in silver under the nightsky.

Next to him, Luke stood facing the lucid dark with an absent-minded smile, and a look of... yearning, the kind that belonged to his younger self. A bright, vulnerable readiness unlocked at the start of everything.

_Come for a walk with me?_ Han swallowed that mindless suggestion at the last instant. The set of Luke’s jaw betrayed strain, a protracted weariness he kept tightly in check. High time he snagged an extended rest. There’d been cots set up for them in the barn. When Han slung an arm around his shoulders, he felt a small start as if he’d jolted Luke back to himself.

“You awake?”

The hazy look that swung across his face carried the distant glitter of stars and floored him completely. He could fall into this, again and again, and at some point the falling had veered into flight, whatever that meant. _Yeah, go figure and give Luke a break while you’re at it_.

That decision made, he switched to a casual tone. “Past your bedtime, junior.”

Another twist of wind flipped Luke’s hair into his eyes, and he pushed it back with a shrug. “I was just thinking about some of the gaps in our plan.”

“Hey, all of that can wait.” Han caught him a little closer, insistent to bring the message home. “Listen, I’ll just go for a stroll to clear my head. Be with you shortly.”

“All right.” Something else wavered briefly at the back of Luke’s eyes and dropped from sight when he disengaged, shoulders hunched against the wind. “I guess I should.”

Han watched him move past the scattered veins of gaslight, into deep blue shadows that outlined and cradled him — dark, bright, untouched by any of it — until he’d turned around the corner of the main building. Though Han issued marching orders to himself, he stayed rooted to the spot, intention jammed between one impulse and another.

Maybe he’d just watched Luke walk away once too often, or maybe the damn virus and two mugs of spiced ale had left his brains muzzy, but his heartbeat rocked hollow and strange in his chest. Presuming a loss that turned inside out into mutiny. _Can’t let him go_. He thought of Coruscant again, and a vital part of the feeling was exactly the same. Something hauled to the surface that he couldn’t ignore any longer.

Han set himself in motion. A clutch of wind-crippled pines rustled on his left, their prickly scent mixing with the ocean tang. On his right, the shaggy bluffs rose above the sea, and he climbed through brambles and leathery grass until the ocean’s roar had scrubbed every thought from his head. He flopped down at the edge of the cliff and dangled his legs over the side.

Though he hadn’t traveled north since half of forever, the smells were still familiar, just like the wind’s bite and the fugitive lights on the water. He could make out one of the large orbital docks from here, a polygonal shape dotted with yellow blips. Between his boots, waves surged and faltered in a tumult of ghostly spray.

Han stretched, arching his back around a pleasant prickle, like an imprint of shed ballast between his shoulder blades. His fingers raked at crumbly soil that would flame copper during daytime. Something about this felt like...

...not like home, but maybe a memory passed unnoticed down the family line, waiting to be tried on for size. The dizzy height had seized all his senses, claimed he was part of the restless waiting that drove the surf against the cliff. Time beaten out against something brittle inside him.

He sucked in another lungful of the briny air, let it cauterize and burn, until anticipation rushed through him like the surf down there, and it wasn’t going to stop.

Some minutes later, he crept into the dark barn where the breathing patterns of Luke’s sleep surrounded him. His clothes felt icy when he undressed, and stiff from the harsh wind. Han got a grip on the lightsteel frame of the cot and carried it across, placing it next to Luke’s.

“G’nite,” he mouthed, more to himself, as fatigue crawled over him. Close enough to touch, Luke shifted through the embers of a dream.

Almost like bunking down in a Rebel camp, was the last thought that divided Han from sleep.

* * * * *

The southern districts of Eiglom Port had been taken over by mindless claims to anarchy. From the ruined building they’d picked as watchpost, Han squinted across the rubble that sprawled sooty and glum in the midday heat. He raised his macros again, though the grainy visual didn’t give him much detail. There had to be survivors trapped in the basement.

Half an hour ago, a shock grenade had torn up the ground-level workshop across the street, but the main walls held up in burnt brick around the charred cavity. Han dialed for maximum magnification and stared hard into the bluish range of demolition. Among the debris of collapsed wall and splintered front door, a black gash stuck out like a sore, and straight below, fractured bricks wobbled and shifted every once in a while. Had to be people down there, trying to scoop out an exit hole or at least hook someone’s attention. But throwing them a lifeline would take more than a waltz with the shovels.

For some time, a bunch of crazies had holed up in the rear part of the shelled house, though there’d been no shots fired from that direction for the past ten minutes. Chances were, they’d retreated to the row of warehouses fronting the canal.

A blue-white bolt fired into Han’s vision as his lenses caught the sun and made him a fine target for all the mad snipers still prowling the neighborhood. He slumped back against the wall beneath the broken window.

“Anything?” Luke asked in a lowered voice.

“Think there’s someone in the basement.” Han clicked off the macros. “Can’t tell for sure, but something’s moving down there.”

“Hang on...” Luke settled on his haunches, his back turned to the group of seven brigadeers as he closed his eyes. Presumably to spare everyone the unsettling sight of a Jedi gathering recon through the Force.

A smile wound up from nowhere as Han watched. Nothing unsettling about it, unless that rapt kind of calm counted.

“You’re right,” Luke said at length. “I can’t tell exactly how many there are, but there seem to be children among them.”

“Could be the whole family.” Han cut a glare at the cracking plaster in front of him. He’d run out of curses awhile ago.

Only this morning, they’d dropped down on their cots under the happy delusion that the citizens of Eiglom Port were clawing their way back to the light of reason. Negotiations had dragged on through the night while the factions heaped their gripes on the table. No point trying to determine who’d started the fights, or who’d fueled the rampant animosity between the miners and the valiant men of the fishing industry. Once they’d opened the floodgates, both sides had dredged up every kind of grudge and ancient family quarrel until their complaints ranged back to the time when the first miners had hit the town, more than a century ago.

And now some of these lunatics were at each other’s throat again, close enough to the docklands to cause real worry.

“We’ve got to do something about it,” Luke said, pulling Han back from the brink of blazing frustration. “If those walls collapse, the floor might cave in too.”

“I know.” Han swiped at his damp forehead. “Problem is, we’ve got a couple gunslingers on the lefthand roof, and at least two in the building on the right.” He stretched up to gesture at the burst second-floor windows. “And I’ll bet there’s a whole crowd of unfriendlies living it up on the far side, so we can’t go round to the back entrance either.”

“Then we’ll have to distract the gunmen,” Luke returned, skimming another glance across the sun-grilled battlefield.

Han studied his profile with the same troubled attention. While the heat in the room was dripping sweat into his collar, no hint of a flush showed on Luke’s pale face, and the shadows beneath his eyes marked too many miles of bad road.

_No wonder_ , Han told himself; what with soaring adrenaline levels and the hours they’d kept lately, the wear and tear was starting to tell on them all. And Luke had passed up most of his rations too. In fact, Han couldn’t recall when he’d last seen him grab a bite.

An edgy whistle from the comlink clipped that thought, and Han frowned at the code on the small display. Leia calling in the middle of the day struck a high note of alarm.

“Any progress?” she asked in a pressured tone that went straight to the pit of his stomach.

“Things’re settling down round here,” Han reported, but a pulse gun went off right at that moment, like a rabid sneer at his claim. He grimaced. “Or pretending to. What’s up? The Mon Cal bailed out yet?”

“Your unfaltering optimism is such a great help,” Leia retorted, all sarcasm, no humor. “No, they’re still here. They arrived late last night, and Madine is taking them through a tour of the orbital docks this morning, to discuss technological transfers.”

“Keep ‘em out of harm’s way,” Han translated. “So what is it? Let’s hear the bad news first.”

“Who said there was any good news?” Leia sighed, a thin rattle of sound. “The Corellian patients are recovering gradually, though not at the rate you did.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad.” Han flicked a surreptitious glance over at Luke. _Seems I got that right about the Force stepping up the process_...

“No, but two non-natives have been infected by now. A Bothan trader and an attaché from the Sullustian embassy.”

Han set his teeth against a pointless expletive. Of all the bad breaks...

“Neither of these cases can be traced back to the first appearance of the virus,” Leia continued. “There must be a second source of infection that we haven’t located yet.”

“How’re they doing?”

“Not well,” she answered, struggling for a neutral tone. “The labs are working on an antidote day and night, and the doctors seem confident that they can keep both alive for another day or two, but they require constant transfusions.”

Another rattle of shots chopped her explanations. Han raised a hand to cover his ear.

“At least the news embargo is working so far. Everyone at the med center has been instructed that the matter must be treated with absolute confidentiality.” At that point, an indeterminate background noise interrupted her. “I don’t think I’ll have time to check in with you tonight,” Leia said hurriedly, “but I thought you should know.”

“Right. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

When he lowered the comlink, Luke was watching him, the news catching bleakly in his eyes. Acknowledgment passed between them and gave way to tactical thinking in the space of a heartbeat. They had no time to waste on a muddled situation with a few gun-toting grudge-bearers.

“Here’s what we do,” Han said, using his blaster to point out directions. “One team opens fire to keep our friends busy. The second group sneaks into the building and takes out the gunmen on the second floor. Should be easier to handle than the guys up on the roof, ‘cause they’ve got themselves cornered in there.”

“And once they’re out of it, the second group can engage the party on the roof,” Luke concluded.

“While the first makes a break for the house, right.” Han tipped his head towards the window. “Ain’t no telling if we’ve got any more grief coming from the canal. We’ll deal with it when we get there.”

“I’ll go for the gunmen,” Luke said, all matter-of-fact.

A short pause clenched around the friction between necessity and rebellious impulse. Han supposed he’d have to get used to the feeling.

“Take three,” he returned. “Give me a call when you’re set up.” _And be goddamn careful_.

Half a minute later, he was pitching random blasts across the splintered windowsill, counting out the seconds Luke would need to advance on the shooters. Outside, the white glare blistered across the carnage. They’d lived through a score of similar scenes in Rebellion days — blocking the worry ran on automatic — but a heightened sense of jeopardy reflected the change into every part of Han’s nervous system. Not alarm so much as an expanded awareness that put him in two places at once.

Through the sputters of their own blasterfire, Han thought he could hear a rough hiss and thud, and a moment later his comlink whistled out the signal. He holstered his blaster and nodded to the four men and women appointed at the windows. “One minute.”

One by one, they edged to the door. The bark of a slug gun started them running, the short distance alive with plasma blasts, heatrays and clogging ozone. Vaulting over debris, through channels of gunshots and flying shrapnel, they won the brief race against entropy.

“Go for cover and stay there!” Han rapped out as they gained the ruined workshop. “I’ll go looking for stairs down to the basement.”

Most likely, they’d be located close to the back door, if not outside in the yard where trigger-happy troops might still hang out.

At the back of the workshop dangled a curtain of reddish wooden beads, grotesquely undamaged. Pushing it aside, Han took a step into the corridor, straining to listen past the noise — and something seized in his gut.

A closed door on the far side shuttered the dim stretch. Filthy yellowed light slatted in through an air filter above. Old smells lingered in the passage, breathed out of the wallpaper, and the floor was littered with pale chunks of plaster and mortar from the ceiling. Nothing suspect or threatening, but all his instincts recoiled. _Don’t go through that door_.

What a perfect moment to entertain a freaking déjà-vu. Han expelled his breath in a snort and crept forward, but the corridor tunneled out in front of him, and there were no other doors on either side, just the claustrophobic sense of no choice at all.

There’d be a kitchen behind that door, he reminded himself with some force, or perhaps a laundry, and some goons might be waiting to take potshots at the first dimwit crossing the doorstep. And that was it, a bland total of facts and expectable hazards.

At his back, the crossfire had ceased. The door stood open a crack, he noticed now. A thin, shadowed fissure traced the bleached wood, and he’d frozen in his tracks. Caught in a loop that would always sling him back to the same place, the same feeling of confirmed panic, of curdled time lacerating his insides. Sweat turning cold against his breastbone. For the moment, he couldn’t tell if the dull hammering came from within his own ribcage or the basement or somewhere else entirely.

Only a few more steps, and he’d fall straight through time, the shreds of his own life, of home and safety tumbling about like ash-flakes. A goddamn curse, memory, that ran a chill through his bones.

“Han!” he heard Luke call from the echo well of the workshop. “Everything okay?” His footsteps entered the corridor at a light, vigilant pace.

“Stay behind me,” Han snapped.

“What is it?”

The chill in his gut coiled up tighter. So maybe he was paranoid, maybe his best instincts were too thoroughly steeped in the past, but he scooped up a chunk of mortar and hurled it at the door that slammed open —

— and something hit the floor, cracked with a grating metallic snap while he fell backwards, crushing Luke against the wall with his own body for cover —

— and the detonator blew out the back of the house.

The crash quivered through him like the shattering of everything fragile, and then no more than a minor explosion, its fury spent on plaster, floorboards and windowpanes.

Through the gamboling dust clouds, Han saw the wooden porch catch fire that roared across to the shed, the fence, the warehouse on the other side. Luke’s hand clutched in reflex around his arm, and he breathed out, breathed the white innocuous dust, while part of him shook with a crazy urge to laugh.

In the wrecked laundry, a small iron door hung askance on its hinges, the heavy latch ripped off by the detonator charge. When he wrenched it open, iron stairs dropped into dusty blackness. Smoke wound in languidly from the porch.

Five steps down, they waded through a minor drift of rubble, every clatter and crunch enhanced dramatically in the cramped space.

“Anybody here?” Han shouted. A roll of distant thunder filtered in from aboveground, and he realized belatedly that the fire would shield them from anyone holed up by the canal. Small mercies, and all that. A feeble torch beam burrowed out of the darkness in response.

“Who’s there?” asked a male voice.

“Come on out,” Han called. “It’s safe now.” Luke stood close by his shoulder, as if guarding his back, while the torch beam wavered across them.

There were six survivors, four adults and two children covered in white stone dust. Squinting around when they’d climbed back up to the ruined laundry, like they’d stumbled onto alien terrain.

Several brigadeers had secured the place meanwhile, blaster rifles slung over their shoulders to keep them out of sight. “Better get out through the back,” one of them said. “Another part of the roof came down at the front.”

Han glanced out past the black remains of the porch. A watercannon had rolled up by the canal, lashing thick streams at the flames that wreathed the warehouse. From the look of it, the fire had shocked some people back to their senses, a throng of them observing the conflagration like stunned witnesses to some unexpected disaster.

“Guess we’re ready to wrap it up,” Han said to no one in particular. “Let’s go.”

A wet blast caught them mid-run, and by the time they met up with the rest of their team, they’d all been soaked to the bone.

While the brigadeers regrouped and escorted the bedraggled family to a hovercraft, Luke took off his jacket and wrung it out. Wet clothes clinging to his frame, he looked small and scrawny.

Han placed a hand between his shoulder blades and felt the shiver along his spine. “C’mon, let’s find some dry gear before you catch something.”

Luke’s mouth twitched at that, and he squared his shoulders almost forcibly. “What happened? Back there.”

Well, no surprise that he’d noticed something more than sensible alarm. Han cast a look back at the carcass of the house. “I’ll tell you later.”

* * *

Afternoon wore itself out in sapped shades of amber when they reached their retreat for the night. From a refugee camp they’d moved on to the edge of town where a grateful mining administrator provided lodging for the brigade commandos. A rapid switch from predicament to luxury that left Han vaguely suspicious. But here was a lavish guest house with soft beds and gleaming appliances, sheets and towels stacked up in invitation to snatch the rest they all needed. Another night, and several planets would move into ominous alignment.

Skin warmed by a long shower, Han grabbed up two ration packs and headed back out. Wherever he got his bearings, that homing instinct worked with puzzling near-perfection. On the far side of the grounds, Luke sat facing the seashore, an unyielding silhouette against the glitter of restless water.

Han dropped down beside him on the grassy ridge and pushed the ration pack at him. The slope ran into a sharp sickle of sand and pebbles that framed a narrow cove. In the absence of substantial wind, a late-summer buzz haunted the warm air.

“You’re not eating,” Han said after a while.

Luke offered only the hint of a shrug and returned, “You knew that door was booby-trapped.”

“Coincidence.” Han braced for another flashback, the ambush of memories lying close under the surface like starved ’gators in a river. But all that came this time was an odd sense of exhausted alarm. An invisible sun slanted electric colors out of the west, ribbing the sky in mauve and crimson.

Dressed in borrowed combat fatigues, Luke balanced his untouched rations on his knees. “You recalled something,” he suggested. “Something about a door.”

A clue snatched from his delirious ramblings, no doubt. And it was extended in neutral fashion, like mere conversation. Easy to ignore.

A sticky heat lingered on the air. Han scanned the horizon with a half-hearted hope for clouds, but the fuzzy patches out there didn’t look like they’d spill anytime soon. What rose inside him was akin to hallucination, a scintillating fever haze. He thought of that night in the tent, the desperate pressure of time and missed chances.

“Yeah,” he said finally, “that was about... the place where we used to live.”

He could look straight into those vandalized rooms now, roam across the junk and the destitution like a figment in somebody else’s story, and those images had lost their sickening punch somewhere down the line.

“She died.”

He heard himself say that, incredulous, almost enraged at the bald sound of it. Twenty years to spit it out, and none of the deadweight showed.

“There was an accident.” He jerked to his feet and stared out hard at the dislodged stripes of sunset, the manic coloring. “Ma got killed, and I didn’t find out ‘til three days later ‘cause I was hangin’ out someplace else. By the time I got back, they’d already ripped our place apart.” He remembered to breathe there. “People from our neighborhood. Didn’t leave much. I never went back.”

He was talking himself into it, out of it, from an offside position. Not a shred of sentiment came, all of it disowned too long ago, just that taut, accusing void inside him.

A high tide washed over a weathered pier where sailboats must have been towed generations ago. Han watched the waves sprawl, scatter and sink, while solid coordinates resumed gradually. He’d walked down to the waterfront and Luke stood beside him in the breathless dusk that felt too damn hot.

“We didn’t get along all that well,” Han added. “Not at that time. She said I’d regret what I was doing.”

Hopefree drifting, once all those dreams for big turnups had misfired. And there’d never been any point wishing he could rip through that goddamn knot of coincidence. Like there could’ve been a better time for a fatal accident. Like his own choices had nothing to do with it.

Anger roiled with vicious suddenness. “See what I mean? Always takes a major blowout, then I’ll start rethinking my choices. She _died_ —”

“Was there anything,” Luke interrupted, a relentless charge in his voice, “ _anything_ you could’ve done for her if you’d returned home sooner?”

Han shook his head mutely. Died instantly. He’d wrestled that much from the righteous next-door neighbor who swore up and down that Han wasn’t worth the dirt under his mother’s fingernails. Who’d probably joined up for the looting.

“I had nightmares about Coruscant,” Han said. “About... getting there too late. All those bodies buried in the slag. Turning them over while I’m looking for you ’n Leia, and they’re... faceless, all of them. But never about this.”

When he met Luke’s eyes again, unchecked emotion slammed into him without warning. Transparent, intense and implacable. Like the regret, the loss, the rage he should feel had scathed Luke instead of him. Caught and resolved in the clear lines of Luke’s face. And he was so alive. Alive and ablaze with it, and hurting for him.

“I ran away from emptiness, that first time,” Han made himself finish. Life like a dust-gathering void, waiting to swallow him up. “Still can’t say I regret it.”

And that was life as he’d learned it: a sequence of rifts and scars, no help for it. Make yourself face the carnage, chart the trap so you won’t fall into it again, and hightail it out of there. Start over. A working solution, for the longest time. ‘Til he kept glancing back over his shoulder, at all the blank spots and the ruptures, and felt the ground shrink round his feet. A breathless _nothing_ pulling closer.

“You do — and then you don’t,” Luke said after a pause, in a quiet tone that belonged to another time and place. “That’s how it was when I left Dagobah, when I dropped everything to come to Bespin. Yoda had warned me not to leave, and he was right. He was right that I didn’t stand a chance against Vader. But still...” He trailed off, as if testing the soundness of his argument. “Maybe you can’t be sure you’ve made the right choice, but it’s _your_ choice, it’s what you are.”

“Yeah, and what does that make me?” From where he stood, Han could see the skeletal structures of mining platforms hulk over the water. Abandoned on a rim of daylight. “Maybe I’m just not... stable enough.”

“No,” Luke said fiercely. “You just can’t see yourself the way I do. That’s all.” His tone threatened the near limits of temper. “Look at the things you’ve done, the things you’re doing. Can’t you see that?”

A snap retort caught at the bottom of his throat. Han swallowed. Seemed like he kept swinging through the same cycles that he just couldn’t break. Dodging regrets, all the ballast he’d tried to dump by the wayside. Flirting with the big hollow nothing ‘til he could claim it for his freedom, he could see that now.

“Don’t you know how long — how long I’ve relied on you?” Luke asked, almost incredulous, yet absolutely certain. “Don’t you think you’ve given me a reason?”

“And you think I should just take your word for it?” Han challenged. Still fighting the need to believe, fighting himself. He felt his teeth clench as he listened to the constant sermon of waves rattling the pebbles, and thought of waking up next to Luke on Ylab. Early sunlight that loosened everything into the shape and flow of a dream. A revelation he couldn’t trust, couldn’t hold on to.

Luke fixed him with a critical glance, uncompromising. “It’s a start.”

Han narrowed his eyes. The light was different here, a smoldering recession that tightened every contour, every inch of distance, falling in a narrow band against the side of Luke’s face. Real and close, waiting for him.

_This is it_. Silence drove in on Han’s breath. Right here, they were poised on the same brink, _all-or-nothing_ coming up fast like a danger sign, and he could walk away from it once again. _I’m sorry, I can’t. Can’t be what you want me to be_. And Luke would let him go, the stubborn jut of his chin said as much.

_You just can’t see yourself the way I do_.

And it was true, he couldn’t, this was coming at him from a blind angle, from a breach he’d never expected.

_I can’t_.

Trying to trick himself out of it, armed to the teeth with sober argument. Let _nothing_ come and claim him, get it over with. Though maybe the pull in his stomach owed more to fear than realism.

Han breathed in sharply. _Can’t leave you_. A truth broken out of him that left him raw with choices already made. Fall or flight, two sides of the same coin. And he had nothing left to go by but the unsteady thrums of his own pulse, the shaky grounds of too much feeling, too much of everything.

“Luke...” His hands were there before he’d caught his breath, clasping both shoulders, seizing him close. “Hell. I don’t know where to start.”

A hand delved into the front of his shirt and held fast. “You don’t have to say it. You don’t have to tell me anything. I know how you feel.”

Something snagged in Han’s throat, and he couldn’t squeeze that much into a single word, the flat, immaterial noise of it. “Believe me, it’s worse. Like I keep fallin’ in love with you all the time.”

He couldn’t pause to listen after what he’d just said, not when Luke looked at him that way, all the waiting unraveled, igniting. Suddenly his heart was pounding.

“It’s just that I’ve been wanting to—”

“I don’t need any promises,” Luke said, “if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Maybe _I_ do.”

He’d thought that it might feel like surrender, like he’d signed something over, a concession. Instead, it felt like a new element encircling them, shared and generous. When he drew Luke’s mouth against his own, the sheer pull of it extended far into his chest, and he could breathe again, free and deep. A rush of oxygen growing bright, going straight to his head. He hauled Luke closer, to taste and breathe him in, no clue how he’d ever balance out again. Fragments coming together, sealed up with the pressure of Luke’s mouth on his own, the quick tremor that went through Luke’s frame and caught him too, edged in light.

Han pulled back slowly, almost prepared to find reality in a dazzling tailspin, but everything moved into focus around Luke’s smile. Beautiful. Released, after that edgy ride through the past. A homecoming he’d never expected.

And now it didn’t matter that he had to clear his throat before he could get words out, something to cut through the knots in his own thinking. “I thought I could make up my mind once I got away from everything... but it didn’t work that way. Takes more than one.”

_Your choice now_.

Except that it had been made weeks ago.

“I took such a long time to see it myself,” Luke returned, his smile struggling against the clear tracks of exhaustion.

Han bent his head to kiss him again, more restrained this time and more conscious of the slow, radiant wave that traveled through him, hands gliding gently down Luke’s back. Through the fabric of Luke’s shirt, he could trace the hard curves of spine and ribs. An unsteady rasp in his breath.

“You really need a rest, kid,” he murmured. No rush now. He thought of sharing a proper bed with Luke, the distant roll of the ocean beaten out through the night —

— but his words fell into a quiet that grew abruptly conspicuous, that stretched thin until Luke said, “Han...” in a low, ragged voice, “there’s something you need to know.”

The sound of it chilled him with arctic clarity, a note of desperate control in Luke’s tone that could mean only one thing.

“The virus,” Han blurted. “You’ve got it, is that it? But how—”

“I must have caught it when you did, or shortly after,” Luke answered, but Han wasn’t listening, his mind casting out frantically for solutions, a plan, anything.

“Come on—” he grabbed Luke’s arm, “—gotta take you to the med center right away.”

“They don’t have an antidote yet,” Luke objected sensibly.

The ground tilted again, reeled him straight into fury. “I don’t freakin’ care! They’d better do _something_ —”

“Han, calm down.”

“ _Calm down_?” he snapped. “It’s a damn lethal disease, didn’t you hear Leia?”

“There’s nothing they can do for me in the med center that I can’t do with the Force,” Luke said, a careful emphasis on every word. “Listen to me... I’ve lived with it much longer than those patients in the capital. My test results didn’t make much sense to the doctors.”

“But you’re not immune.” Han scrambled for a handle on his temper, cursing the blinders he’d worn these past few days when he should have noticed.

“No, but I can slow it down,” Luke insisted. “I was drawing on the Force almost constantly when it started... I think that’s what delayed the onset. And I can control it now.”

“Yeah, but for how long?”

“It’s only another day. And tomorrow is too important. There’s no point in changing our plans until they’ve found a working antidote.”

Han ground his teeth together and swallowed that reasoning piecemeal, every jagged bite of it. Discovered — no surprise there — that it didn’t dull the fear gripping cold round his backbone.

“All right.” At least his voice held steady enough. “But the minute they’ve got it, we’re on our way, no matter what. And you’ll relax ‘til we’re off tomorrow afternoon, y’hear me? Sleep, meditate, whatever you need to do.”

“Yes, Captain.”

That attempt at levity fired past its mark. Han’s lungs clenched as if breathing suddenly required a conscious effort. “You can’t eat, can you?” The spells of wrenching nausea came back to him in noxious detail. “There’s gotta be something we can do about that... Get an IV drip, stimulants, or something.”

“That would help,” Luke agreed. He raised a hand to Han’s face, a touch that offered comfort — absurd, Han thought, crazy like this whole venture.

He swallowed hard, almost dizzy with disbelief and denial. “I hope to hell it does.”

* * *

The fogs took long to lift the next morning. Han stepped out into white streamers that rolled close to the ground, the gristly sensation of missed sleep in his limbs. Never mind that now, a night spent watching over Luke’s sleep made up for it. All the trust exposed in his careless sprawl, loose-limbed and unguarded for the first time in weeks.

Han rolled his shoulders and massaged at a crick in his neck. All through the night, he’d checked the IV drip every hour, and a couple of times he’d lurched out of fitful dozing, grabbing on to Luke’s wrist for pulse and reassurance, seconds before his mind could locate the source of alarm. But there’d never been any change — no drop in blood pressure, no raised skin temperature — almost as if surrender enveloped Luke in transient protection. Still fast asleep when early light crept in, face half buried in the crook of his free arm, blond strands tousled over the smooth curve of skin. A sight carved into Han’s senses until he had to get up, get out, bring on the future that would keep Luke safe.

Ten meters from the beach, he paused to pull out his comlink. Ragged mist curled over the low tide, resolved water into shimmering air.

“Yes?” When Leia answered his call, he detected a change in background noise that added up instantly. _Wind_ , Han decoded the intermittent hiss that snatched at her voice.

“Where are you?” he asked without preliminary.

If he’d surprised her, she didn’t let on. “With Lando and the troops posted fifty miles south of the Yannis islands,” Leia answered crisply, as if he’d been briefed about this move days ago. “Don’t ask me how he wrangled authorization from Madine, but Lando has been placed in command over this contingent.”

Something to do with regulations for reserve officers, most likely. And that summed up the one lucky factor in a volatile equation.

“You know what’s gonna happen if you come charging in at the wrong moment,” Han said sharply. “How d’you think you’ll keep a crowd this size under control, short of gunning them down? How many are there, anyway?”

“Our latest reports count a hundred and fifty thousand migrants scattered all over the archipelago,” Leia answered with measured coolness. “I’d hoped you’d recall enough of our officers’ basic training. They’re not about to start a senseless massacre.”

“So? What’s the plan?”

“We might be able to intercept any vehicles going up to the Mantura,” Leia suggested.

“You’d have to shoot ‘em out of the sky,” Han countered, bracing his temper with a final reserve of civility. “You can bet Gol’s men will be aboard, and they’re not gonna back down any more than their boss. Best you can hope for is stop the Mantura once she’s out of atmosphere.”

“There is the matter of protecting you and Luke,” Leia retorted in the same restricted tones. “You realize that both of you will be prime targets of retaliation. If Gol is paying ruthless hirelings to pilot shuttles, I’d expect him to have assassins placed among the crowds as well.”

And from the sound of her voice, that was the principal motive for this sudden show of force.

“Don’t doubt it, but we’ll have the brigades to back us up,” Han answered gruffly. “I know what you’re sayin’, but this could blow up in our faces, big time. Don’t kick off a civil war over me, okay?”

The deliberate spicing of sarcasm fetched a snort from Leia, and Han bridged the moment’s awkwardness with an instant question. “Any news from the lab?”

“They’re on to something,” Leia said haltingly, like she couldn’t let herself slide into hope just yet.

Han took another moment to hunt for the casual kind of inquiry that wouldn’t set off suspicion like blazes, but no matter how he phrased it, Leia would see straight through to the miserable root of the problem. “Who’s in charge of that research?” he asked and caught the electronic rasp of her breath. “I need a direct connection with whoever’s responsible.”

“It’s Luke,” she fired at once, “isn’t it? He wasn’t immune after all...”

“No, but he’s got things under control for the time being.”

“Under control? Han, I don’t think—”

“He says he can use the Force to delay the effects. And it works, Leia. He’s doin’ far better’n that Bothan guy ’n your—”

“The Bothan _died_ this morning,” Leia interrupted.

Fear struck cold and insidious under his breastbone. Han kicked himself on to the next question. “How’s the Sullustian doing?”

“He seems more resilient, but he’s suffering from seizures at intervals.” A drained note had entered her voice and betrayed her foremost thought. _Luke can’t last that much longer_.

“Yeah, so that’s bad news...” Out of old habit, Han switched back to strategic optimism. “All the same, it goes to show that Luke’s in a different league. He’s had it since we got back, and he’s holding up pretty good. And you said yourself that it’s only a matter of days now.”

“That’s their estimate,” Leia qualified.

“Look, just tell me who I should talk to, and I’ll get Luke there the minute they’ve got an antidote.”

“You’d better.” She spelled out the name and code for him with a grim sort of patience and added, “I’m sending a courier with clothes for Luke. They’ve been copied off a painting from one of the cycles.”

“Won’t hurt to spiff up our act any way we can, I guess.” Han caught himself scanning the horizon as if some heavy portent might crop up any minute. “All right, I’ll watch for the gofer.”

When he’d signed off, he stared out over the fogs, into the east where the sun had corroded a path through the glistening soup. No stopping time, nothing for it now but to hit full throttle. Do what they had to do, and meanwhile the labs would have to cook up something — if not a fully functional cure, then medication to battle the symptoms.

Han stalked up the slope and found Luke meditating in a rim of early shade beneath the cleaver trees. The wind shifted and threw up a scent of mintblossom. Right behind it, a faint smell of fall rode the air. Han squatted down on a rocky ledge and cast only a short glance in Luke’s direction.

Withdrawn under the scraggy fan of the trees, gathering himself for another effort. Sheltered in the molten quiet he could summon and convert to pure energy.

_That blasted Force’d better keep him safe, or else_... The thought startled Han with a jab of belief like midday lightning. Like he’d swallowed it all, hook, line and sinker. Evidence of the choice he’d made, for another day or a hundred thousand — and it was all about an intensity anyway, nothing that could be measured on a temporal scale.

When he looked up, Luke stood right in front of him, as if he’d transported across in the blink of an eye. “Any news?”

Han took his outstretched hand, run aground in a strange bewilderment for a moment and another.

“You’ve got a fancy getup coming,” he said after a pause. His head in the clouds as he got to his feet. Within this airless height, Luke’s eyes were blue like the ether, and the rest of the world shrank back a pace.

Han fumbled for breath. “...’n I love you, though that’s hardly news anymore.”

But if he could draw a smile like that, as wide and dazzling as high summer, he’d finally set something right.

 

By noon, he was talking Chewbacca through some last-minute recalibrations that would bolster the Falcon’s chances for secure escape. The sun steamed wetness out of the grass, a humid pall engulfing the day. Han cut the connection in time to see Luke return from the house, dressed in the new outfit that advanced his likeness with legend.

Tunic and pants gleamed dark as if cut from a shale-colored dusk, the black cloak falling down to his boots. Cobalt lining shimmied around his frame like a fold of blue air.

“What do you think?”

Luke swept the cloak back in mid-stride to adjust the lightsaber at his belt for easy reach, a small motion flashing with all the fierce agility that defined him.

“I think,” Han said slowly, “you could sell me anything… but maybe that’s just personal bias showing.”

The dress-up was incidental anyway. Skin drawn tight over his bones, Luke was all charged resolve, like his essence flaring to the surface, clarified in his struggle with the virus.

“I hope not.” Luke turned to face the manicured part of the garden. From it, Peglar and Antram approached at a forceful pace, and with them the upshot of all their plans and drills.

“Your ship’s ready?” Antram asked with a calculating look at the sky.

“She’ll be here in another hour,” Han confirmed. “And the next time we land her on water, she’s gonna float as long as we need her to.”

Antram took it in with a short nod. “It’s fortunate that these people are so given to rumors and legends,” he said. “Some of them must’ve heard the story that the Jedi used the Falcon to escape Imperial pursuit, all those years ago. That’s going to work in our favor.”

“The Jedi?”

Beside him, Luke cocked an eyebrow in private amusement.

“Hell, it’s like everybody’s layin’ claim to her these days,” Han muttered. “First it’s Gol, and now... Gotta admit though, I like the idea much better.”

“Your battle group’s standing by,” Antram went on. “We’ve got fifty brigadeers at the front line, and backup set out for Yannis this morning.”

“No shortage of bodyguards then.” It didn’t come out quite as jauntily as he’d intended.

“I wish we could do more to protect you.” Peg discarded all afterthoughts with a quirk of the lip. “The alignment should become visible before full nightfall. Around the ninth hour, according to our weathermen.”

“We’ll be there,” Luke said.

From him and throughout his own bloodstream, Han felt the stirs of anticipation, the way it stripped everything circumstantial from mind. A soft string of clouds was hanging over the mountain range in the south.

“So,” he started, “you got any special part for me to play?”

“Oh, definitely,” Peg answered, deadpan. “You’ll be Han Solo, captain of the Millennium Falcon.”

* * * * *

The air hummed with voices. From the top hatch, Luke stepped out on the Falcon’s back, the purr of her engines shivering softly against his boots. Netted with thick weals of sealant, she rode the calmest stretch of high tide. For a long moment, Luke absorbed the countless voices that eddied across the water. Fervent sermonizing from Skylar preachers, fragments of song overlapping in accidental canons, the swell of heated conversations. Expectation hummed everywhere, crisscrossed with anger and a need for revelations.

During their landing approach, they’d sailed low over the scatter of small islands to the spit of land covered by sprawling camps, taking directions from the milling advance below. A river of bodies poured down a rocky gorge towards this bay, where tall crags caught the last daylight. Every strip of soil and plateau overrun with believers, with the mobile ornament of torches and lanterns. A pale corridor of upturned faces had followed their passage overhead, tracking the Falcon as she skidded and steadied on the water.

Further down the bay rocked boats of every size, headlights swarming like fireflies into a thready dusk. Somewhere on that side, Castor kept watch from his glider, alongside a group of brigadeers. Luke steadied himself with a long, slow breath.

“Looks like we’re early...” Han had moved up soundlessly and sent a glance around every horizon, scanning the sullen sky for a hint of the Mantura.

“I don’t think we’ll have to wait very long.”

“You ready for this?” The hand on his shoulder balled tight with unadmitted worry.

“Do you believe I can do it?” Luke asked back. His stomach clenched and rolled suddenly, and it took an effort to force down the spasm.

“You’re feverish,” Han returned, but the look in his eyes said _yes_ , and flashed a warning to be careful all the same.

Luke claimed another moment to memorize the touch that sank its unconditional warmth all the way through him. “If we can get their attention, if we can make them listen, it’s going to make a difference.”

“Don’t worry.” Han let his hand fall aside, his eyes fairly blazing with confidence. “You’ll make ’em think again.”

Dusk settled all around them, slipping wide, ragged wings over the crowds. The Falcon’s arrival had been no more than a passing distraction. Luke could sense the frantic desires that stretched out in all directions at once. For a miracle, a sign, proof of the impossible. Nothing less would do.

With a tight smile for Han, he turned sideways. The next maneuver was nothing he’d ever tried before, and more likely than not sheer desperation had prompted the idea. His own rebellion against the virus, the weakness that threatened to take him down.

_Energy surrounds us and binds us_ , he thought as he gauged the slender seam of light against darkness. _We’re all part of it_.

The Falcon’s runlights pointed a white path across to a steep, lonely cliff, solid as his knowledge of the Force. Luke stepped over the bow mandible’s edge without hesitation. Live energy imbued his senses, shot through with curiosity as he set foot on the bright, unfaltering beam.

_Easy_ , he told himself. Light danced up through him, proposing a kinship that carried for a step and another. Murmurs prodded at the margins of his mind, a wash of incredulousness he couldn’t heed or he’d fall.

He walked on white light, above feeble tugs of wind and a surf of voices, on the strength of a silent atomic revolution. Until every motion seemed to swirl so fast it equaled stillness, veins of directional brilliance sliding past him. Finally, the rough texture of rock struck beneath his boots.

Dizzy for a second, Luke stopped where the runlights flashed over him with isolating brightness against the evening sky. Alone on the cliff’s spine, exposed in the glare while waves of muttered comments passed around the bay, attention shifting to center on him. And some of those eyes might assess the distance for the purpose of a clear shot.

Over a hundred men and women from the brigades had been posted throughout the crowds, scouting for assassins, for Gol’s agents and the rise of aggression running like a fever among the restive groups. They’d function as a backup circuit, disabling isolate attacks, but they couldn’t stop an avalanche if it came to that.

Luke breathed in deep. Here, in the Falcon’s headlight, he’d made himself an easy target, but at least he’d captured the disparate moods to the thrill of something unexpected.

From the far side of the gorge, a stentorian voice scaled the air with angry insistence. “...this world is nothing but a disjointed fabric, and it’s finally coming apart. We’ve had floodings, groundquakes, and a killing drought — clear signs to change our ways!”

“Yes!” Luke shouted. “And the change begins here.”

He caught the soft whirr of a steel rope shooting off its coil. Invisible to the crowds, it spanned the gap between the Falcon and the towering crags.

“Listen to me,” Luke continued. “This is about the changes that you want.”

Behind him, Han and Chewbacca were making the laborious climb, hauling themselves up across magnetic crampons that adhered to the cliff-face.

A segment of the crowd pressed towards his perch; individuals close up, an anonymous, swaying mass from a distance. So much expectancy and will for change, they _were_ change, a captured tide waiting for direction.

“He’s here!” someone shouted. “The Reaper’s Son. He’s been reborn!”

That was a prearranged signal, but other voices picked up the call, and it spread, bouncing back and forth in the resonance field of scarred cliffs. Buzzing around him with a chill of restless hopes and demands. He wished he could move among these people, talk with them instead of conversing through a complication of symbols. Instead of performing in this razor of light.

“Talk to us!” someone else yelled, and other voices fell in. “Save us from destruction!” Bursts of noise and excitement drowning each other out.

Between the rocks, solitary trees buckled under the weight of people clutching their branches in awkward ascent. Stars were breaking overhead, piercing the darker regions of the sky.

“I’m Luke Skywalker.” He steeled himself with another breath. “I am not your savior.”

The same echoes amplified his voice and sent it ricocheting through the bay. Han was beside him now, and a step behind, Chewbacca pulled himself over the rim of the cliff.

“You can shape your own future,” Luke went on. “If this isn’t the world you want to live in, build a different world. The difference is in your own minds.”

Oily smoke from the torches rose up to them, hovering in discrete, windless layers. Discordant replies climbed over the burble of voices.

“That’s easy for you to say, Jedi!”

“Who’re you to tell us what we should do?”

And from a boulder close to the shore, someone yelled, “Sinners all! Offworlders!”

“Why, you were waiting for the Millennium Falcon, and here she is!” Han called down. “Now what? You want judgment or answers?”

Chewbacca roared out loud, the sound redoubled in the clamor of echoes.

“Solo! Are you gonna lead us into the future?”

The wild shout of recognition jangled Luke’s nerves into raised alarm. He cast his mind across the crowd, searching for calculation among the fervor, for cold, savage intent. Like scattered frost, it brushed his senses and went under in a new billow of agitation.

High up in the south, the sky had grown lambent with an auspicious glow portending the alignment. A tremor of engines throbbed on the air. From every direction, an exuberant chorus clashed into the rocks — “The city in the sky!” — syllables dragged out and broken up as the call swept back and forth. The Mantura had arrived.

Luke located her with a short glance over his shoulder, a pale phantom detaching from the bright aura like a fractious cloud. Bathed in that radiance, Gol’s ship looked otherworldly, a phantom from some lost dream. Straight below, a phalanx of dark specks swerved and dived towards the bay.

Luke glanced back down, at a group who’d scrambled up the cliff, clutching each other in precarious balance on a rocky ledge. The blend of untimely lights washed over their raised faces, the smiles they wore like an apprehension of deliverance.

“You don’t understand,” a woman said, loud enough for him to hear. “You’re not one of us.”

“They’re here,” Han muttered under his breath. “Now it gets interesting...”

“Impostor!”

Luke swung towards the source of that cry, a round face floating like a mirrored moon beneath the branches of a bowed tree.

“They are demons who’ve come to lure us to our downfall!” the man flared in the sonorous tones of the habitual preacher. “But we are the Chosen, we shall be saved!”

Half a step behind him stood a tall Whiphid, ruffled mane spiking from the long neck, the tip of a rifle poking over the man’s shoulder.

“Pearson,” Han said with a disparaging snort. “The guy I talked to on Nam Korlis. Thought he might be around.”

A sharp click at their backs announced the readiness of Chewbacca’s bowcaster, held at a casual angle near his waist.

Above the lights beading up and down the shoreline emerged the messengers who’d descended from the Mantura. Open barges plowed the cooling air, their raised prows and sterns illuminated by a green, nebular shine. On the foremost barge, a scalding light flickered and erupted around a robed figure.

“I have come to take you home!”

The light settled, dimming, and silvered the hood that fell back to expose the stark whiteness of face and hair. Gol spread his hands wide, but there was a covert signal in the gesture, a flash of intent that etched warning across Luke’s mind.

The lightsaber leapt into his hand, swung upward in time with the whistle of a plasma discharge that tunneled through the turbulent noise. With a short sweep to one side, Luke caught the shot angled straight at Han who pivoted aside. Chewbacca’s bolt struck the tree with a dry thud while hot plasma spattered the smoky air. And for a moment Luke met the Whiphid’s large, dark eyes over the gunsight. “You can’t harm us!”

Brigadeers struggled towards the shooter as if swimming upstream through the crowd, but Pearson had long abandoned his companion. Luke raised the lightsaber in both hands. “We’ve come to protect you, not to fight!”

“Protect the true believers from liberation?” Gol’s scratchy voice asked at his back, grating with amplified resonance. “Let the Chosen come to me! They have waited long for this day, and their patience shall be rewarded!”

Resolute throngs pushed forward to the beach, grabbing on to the rope ladders that dropped from the floating barges. Yet there were snarls of counter-movement in the heedless rush, cries that rang out like the high bark of kai-kais in the desert.

“Don’t go! You’ve been used and manipulated!” Luke called.

Below, the stooping trees creaked under too much weight, a sound like the brittle momentum of hope and fury, too much anticipation pressing for release. A hopeless anger clutched him at the lack of time, at the cresting illusions fueled into false accord.

_I’ve got to stop them_.

“Don’t go!” The Force surged in him, and for a moment a strange presence seemed to rouse with it, peering out through his own eyes, appreciating the press of bodies.

Raw material that could be molded and directed towards a saner logic. Guided towards a structured purpose. The way Vader, or Palpatine, would have assessed such a crowd.

_I_ can _stop them_.

“You’ve been betrayed!”

And this time, his voice rolled over their heads underscored by the Force that broke confused thoughts like a weir breaking waves. The backwash beset him with a hot shiver, fever starting to pound in his temples.

“Time won’t stop. Your lives don’t end here. Look at what you’ve left behind, think about where you’re going!”

Luke heard the breathless pauses that cut into his words, a rash power tearing up through him that drained and pulled mercilessly. A tightening of mind and heartbeat.

But he didn’t have to presume on the mass of people, all it took was to isolate the one mind looting those unfledged dreams. Luke swung around, the tip of his lightsaber aimed towards Gol’s chest. “Who do you think this is? A messenger from the gods?”

The sound, the command that drove it lashed across the distance and recoiled in Gol’s expression. Sharp denial pulsed against Luke’s mind, a will he’d have to seize and break to stop this man. And he knew how that would feel, an intimate infraction that snapped sentiment and decision like slender bones. Nausea burned up from his stomach.

“Luke...” A hand pressed against the small of his back, grounding him. “Take it easy,” Han muttered, “don’t let the bastard get to you.”

Luke swung back around. “Stay with us!”

But this time, the call was his own, a lone voice among so many.

Gol regained his poise and splayed his hands in a travesty of benediction. “Come forward, and we shall take you to a better life, you shall have the freedom you desire!”

Motion resumed by the waterfront, ropes dangling with people like giant, awkward grapes. Each barge spacious enough to sweep a hundred off to Gol’s waiting ark. They couldn’t hope to stop them all.

“Don’t you wanna know where you’re goin’?” Han yelled. “I’ve been aboard your _city in the sky_. What d’you think you’ll get, a free cruise to the promised land? That ship up there’s nothing but a rotting old junker!”

Luke straightened against vertigo, a hurried, uneven pulse ticking like time in his fingertips, at the side of his throat. He could dilute and lighten it with the Force, but he couldn’t shut out the knowledge of time running out in his body.

“Follow this man, and you’ll be prisoners of his schemes.”

Past Gol’s barge, he looked at a thickening of clouds over the southern horizon, balled into a defiant ridge.

Somewhere at the foot of the cliff, another voice backed him plaintively. “Listen to the son of the Reaper!”

Gol deflected the cry with a harsh chuckle. “If you are the Reaper’s son, tell us about your father!”

The demand propelled Luke into blank disbelief — Gol didn’t know, couldn’t know, or he wouldn’t have asked — but the feeling rushed ahead on its own momentum. _My father_...

He looked out across the sea, a shimmering distance under the darker half of the sky. Stretching between him and another life that seemed caught up in crystal, remote and preserved in its capsule of knowledge and history. He could almost see his duel with Vader translated into purple pigment and earthy browns.

And he could leave it behind now, bare himself within sight of the future.

“ _Darth Vader_ was my father,” Luke said out loud, a whisper that built between the rocks, words dropping from one mouth after the next, passed around like a forbidden thrill. Beside him, Han gripped his blaster with white-knuckled force.

From the disturbance below, so many eyes searched him. The shadow of truth growing tall at his shoulder, reflected in the swerve of shock-anger-sympathy-terror — and he acknowledged the spate of reactions with a curious, lightheaded relief.

“It’s true. I am the son of Vader, and a Jedi, and I’m not here to command you. Choose your own path. Don’t be deceived by what you see.”

A slight tremor crawled up his backbone, loosened by the fever spell, the pull of immense freedom.

“Sith-spawn!” someone bellowed, a voice like Pearson’s, and he said “yes,” to all the nightmares he’d called up and lived, his lightsaber sinking out of the defensive poise.

“Best get outta here,” Han said through his teeth.

Luke shook his head. “This is the beginning, not the end. Be free on your own terms.”

Some were still leaving, clambering hurriedly into the barges, but others had been brought up short in horrified fascination, a balance shifting.

“Give us a sign, Jedi!” The shout came with a gust of smoke and wind.

If the clouds built high enough to eclipse the alignment —

Another distraction could curb the mechanics of illusion and buy them time.

If he could sway their minds —

_No_. He knew better now.

Luke reached out and reversed direction, dispersing his presence through the crowd, to listen instead of pushing. To collect all the bright scraps of fantasy and deliver them into fact.

Behind him, the steel rope detached with a hiss. With a twist of focused intent, he shut down the Falcon’s systems, and her runlights shuttered into the loose twilight.

“Is that all you can do?” Gol asked scathingly. “Plunge yourself in darkness?”

In a halo of green luminescence, two barges swam back towards the Mantura and some of the smaller, wobbling hovercrafts followed, scrambling for altitude.

“Watch!”

Luke gathered the Force in brimming strands. A buffer against the fear that was mounting slowly, slowly through him, until it sparked cold recognition. Not enough time.

_The Force is boundless_. But he was shaking.

“You okay?” Han asked under his breath, his body warmth clear in the night air, shadowing Luke’s side.

“You might have to help me with this.”

“Anything you need.”

He heard the note of uncertainty in Han’s voice — then the stubborn temper that overtook it — and had no time left to explain.

“Watch the Falcon fly,” Luke shouted.

His hand opened, raised against her massive silhouette on the water. The same as lifting stones on a current of the Force, and size made no difference at all.

Close by, Chewbacca rumbled, a sound that crawled ponderously through rock and hard soil. The smack and slosh of cascading water spilled into silence as the Falcon sailed up, and up, dark and quiet, an iron thundercloud shuddering to life.

Like charged wire strung through himself, Luke could sense Han’s tension, the sting of alarm. So vulnerable now, without her shields, and if the Mantura moved within firing range, a single shot could crack her open.

“The Falcon never dies,” Luke murmured, words he hadn’t thought, obliging a certainty he couldn’t question.

Over the bay, the freighter climbed a steep trajectory, effortless and silent, as if the looks she drew kept her afloat, a solid promise. _Anything is possible_...

But her flight dragged at his breath, too much energy ripped along on the wild flows that channeled through him. His concentration foundered too fast, seeping from him with the fever’s race in his blood. Luke reached for reserves he’d already depleted, stretching farther into the gap that teemed with familiar, intimate rhythms.

He trapped the impulse before he could seize mindlessly, scavenge what belonged to Han — but Han _pushed_ it at him, a bright bow wave that cleared his vision again. Drawing on Han’s own strength and confidence, Luke felt the slide of atoms against the Falcon’s hull, the loss of gravity that swept him out of himself.

The Falcon soared high, immersed in the southern brilliance that streamed around her and shattered into luminous threads. In that wavering, beautiful light, Han’s face was awash with incredulous joy. This was how she was meant to fly, the wholeness of her, self-contained and mysterious.

All around them, ripples of reaction passed through the crowd. Too many of them would never fly like this, and from this night they’d slip back into the ruffled fabric of their lives, settle in with old griefs, until the rush of hope and conviction decayed into failure, a passing craze. Yet here and now, countless minds shifted away from Gol’s lure, to seize on the power of an ancient dream.

Luke spread himself out among them, undone in the whirl of sensation that longed to take flight. Before his inner sight rose the golden-brown falcon, slicing air currents on muscular wings. Hazy brilliance throbbed against a rim of night — and for a moment he recalled Cloud City, cut from a bruised sky flaming with gases, but the memory faltered in the falcon’s shadow.

Out of the light in the south grew a silhouette of towers, glistening in the outpour from so many minds. Each curve and angle drawn with dreamy precision. A city in the sky.

_Do you see that?_

A glitter of laughter in the hazel eyes, and the flush of powerful wings poured velvet darkness into his senses. Overhead, the sky dimmed, the city shifted into accidental shapes, a trapped glow in the cloud bank, fading — pulsing — fading —

The Falcon slipped back towards choppy waves where the light ebbed in dull silver. _Set her down gently_...

“Luke!”

The sound of his name filled out with recollection, with belonging and a thrill of fear. The falcon’s cry beat against the inside of his temple, a sharp tug into a single direction. He drew Han’s strength into himself and felt the brush of dark feathers across his face — pulsing — fading —

_Set her down now set her down_  
_set_  
_her_  
...  
_down_

* * * * *

**Author's Note:**

> First published as a standalone novel in 2001.


End file.
